


World Without Bananas

by thankyouturtle



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouturtle/pseuds/thankyouturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is adjusting a little too well to the 21st Century, in Tony's opinion. In Bruce's opinion, Tony needs to stay out of his lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Without Bananas

Bruce had returned to feeling at home in a lab surprisingly quickly. He was even beginning to think of it as his own lab, and forget the uncomfortable knowledge that it had been purpose built to protect his delicate experiments if he ever – lost control.  
  
Being around other people all the time was harder to get used to, but that was quite possibly because the person he was around the most was Tony Stark. Sometimes the reason for his visits to Bruce’s lab was genuine scientific curiosity in Bruce’s research; more usually, it was too try and piss him off. Recently, however, it had been to complain about their team-mates. One of their team-mates.  
  
“Pepper says I’m being weird and obsessive,” Tony said today, as the lab doors silently slid open.  
  
“You are being weird and obsessive,” Bruce replied, without looking up.  
  
“I’m not being – OK, I’m being a little weird and obsessive. But you can’t tell me it’s normal that a man who’s been frozen since the Second World War can just walk around modern day New York City and not be surprised by anything!”  
  
“He was surprised to hear that two of his ‘Howling Commando’ buddies were getting married,” Bruce offered. “Can you stop leaning on my microscope, please?”  
  
“He was surprised that it had taken them so long,” Tony said, and didn’t stop leaning on Bruce’s microscope. “Also, and I don’t know if you noticed this, but I’m not wearing a shirt and I’ve been looking especially buff recently.”  
  
“Goodbye, Tony,” Bruce said, and actually managed to continue working uninterrupted until midday.  
  
At lunch, Tony contrived to turn the conversation to smart phones. They were, he said with one eye on Steve, probably the greatest tool for change of the 21st Century. Steve, with his mouth full of hamburger, raised his eyebrows; Thor thumped the table. “Indeed, you mortals have created an entertaining device!” he boomed. “And yet it clearly lacks a warrior’s mind.”  
  
“You say that about everything,” Natasha, sitting on Bruce’s left, murmured, and Thor turned to her with a grin.  
  
“My father also accuses me of being one-eyed, and from him that is no compliment! But if your people were constantly sacrificing themselves to save your young from marauding invaders, would you not think to start placing more protections around them?”  
  
There was a pause, as there so often was when Thor had been speaking and the rest of the team needed to work out what he was on about. “Are you talking about Angry Birds?” Bruce asked eventually.  
  
Steve made a movement, and everyone turned to look at him. “I kind of prefer ‘Cut the Rope’.” Against Bruce’s better judgment he glanced at Tony, who mouthed the words “Not normal” at him. Bruce shrugged. He didn’t think that a man who flew around in an exoskeleton was a good judge of what ‘normal’ was, any more than a man who turned into a giant green monster.  
  
“You should get Draw Something,” Natasha told Steve. “I’m sick of playing with Clint. All he knows how to draw are stick people and medieval weaponry.”  
  
“Those screens are tiny!” Clint protested. “You can’t expect actual artwork.”  
  
Bruce left them to it, and returned to his lab.  
  
He had a peaceful afternoon; in fact, he was so caught up in his work that he didn’t even realize he’d missed dinner until Tony arrived to testily tell him so. “And you missed an important breakthrough,” he added. This time, Bruce did actually look up.  
  
“You managed to stabilize the adamantium?” he asked, surprised.  
  
“What? No. Steve ate a banana and wanted to know why we were feeding him raw yellow potato,” Tony said, looking irritatingly pleased with himself. “When Clive finally convinced him it was, in fact, a fruit, he wanted to know what we’d done to ‘ruin all the good tasting vegetables’ while he’d been refrigerated. So,” and he held up a hand as if to stop a round of applause, “I can stop being weird and obsessive now, and get back to concentrating on the important things.”  
  
“Is that why you’re not wearing any pants?” Bruce asked, and Tony smirked.  
  
“That is exactly why I’m not wearing any pants.”  
  
And Bruce went back to reading his notes, not even trying to figure out why his own mouth was twitching into a smile.


End file.
